I did find him, still chamberlain of the city. He very modestly referred me to others who, he said, would gladly preside, and would lend more honor to the occasion than he could. That would not do. I told him that he was Mr. Beecher’s choice. He seemed highly complimented, and kindly consented to serve for the second time. The great hall was packed, and when Mr. Scott appeared, the memory of his earlier action still green, the burst of applause which greeted him grew as it continued, the audience finally rising, waving handkerchiefs, and cheering.
Mr. Scott referred to the meeting in the hall twenty-three years before. He had never regretted occupying the position filled on that occasion; now Mr. Beecher had honored him by asking him to be present again.
Mr. Scott sat down, and Mr. Beecher arose and was greeted with deafening applause. He stood silent and impassive, his face seemingly untouched by emotion, as he looked around upon the vast audience. As the applause died away he began to speak, but before he could make himself heard the applause was again repeated, with additional emphasis, if possible, and Mr. Beecher was obliged to wait for it to cease. Then, in a strong voice that reverberated around the hall, he recalled the previous meeting. “A long lapse of time in a man’s life,” he said, “and such lapses give solidity to a man’s opinion; they also give sagacity.”
He was not surprised at the view some people took of America; they did not know the facts. “America is the younger tree, but the acorn from which it sprang fell from the English oak. Americans are of English lineage and blood. If England is not proud of America, why, then the latter will make her so”—a remark which aroused much applause. The lecture—that one on the “Reign of the Common People,” which so many thousands of Americans have heard with pleasure (and no two audiences ever heard alike)—occupied nearly two hours in delivery, and was frequently interrupted by applause and cheers.
Mr. Beecher preached his first sermon in London on Sunday, July 4, 1886, in City Temple, whose pastor was the Rev. Dr. Joseph Parker. The congregation were admitted by ticket, church members first, then the public, to the capacity of the auditorium. Hundreds, and I may say thousands, came who had to be turned away. That week the religious and secular press teemed with praise for the great American preacher. Every daily paper in London had some kindly notice of him. It is not usual in England for the secular press to notice religious doings, especially those of dissenters, so called. Every denomination has its well-supported organ.
More generous criticism could not have been written than Mr. Beecher received at the hands of the secular and religious press. His sermon was published verbatim, with extended editorial comment.
Sunday, July 11, was an interesting day. Mr. Beecher preached in Union Chapel, Islington, London, for his old friend, the Rev. Dr. Henry Allon, the scholarly representative of the highest class of cultivated, well-educated Congregationalists. There was as great a congregation of intelligent people as I have ever seen. The usual system of first admitting members of the society by ticket was adopted exclusively up to a certain hour. Then the doors were thrown open to the public, and the large auditorium was immediately packed to its utmost capacity. As great a throng outside was unable to get in.
After service, and dinner with Dr. and Mrs. Allon, Mr. Beecher and I, by invitation of Dean Bradley, visited Westminster Abbey, where a number of clergymen of the Church of England were gathered to meet him in the parlors of the deanery. Tea was served, and the Dean invited Mr. Beecher through the various historical private rooms about the Abbey. Dean Stanley’s library and desk were just as when he died. Incidents and anecdotes of their late friend were exchanged between the Dean and Mr. Beecher. The clergymen listened to the dialogue as though fearing to lose a word. As Mr. Beecher entered the Jerusalem Chamber he said:
“I am struck with awe. No room has greater interest to me, unless it be the ‘Upper Room.’”
He recalled with remarkable rapidity and correctness the many religious events that had taken place there—the Westminster Assembly and Confession of Faith, the two revisions of the Bible, etc.—and the eminent and scholarly men brought up within the very gates of that sanctuary listened with intense interest to his eloquent exposition of what must have seemed their own peculiar province of history.
The affection and respect with which Mr. Beecher was greeted by English clergymen—those of the Establishment as well as Non-Conformists—was very marked.
The Dean of Canterbury said to Mr. Beecher himself:
“There is one thing, Mr. Beecher, for which we must all thank you, and that is for what you have taught us of the Fatherhood of God.”
When Mr. Beecher went (in 1886) through England and Scotland, he was hailed on every side by ministers who bore the most grateful testimony to the happy influence which his ministry had exercised upon their spiritual lives. Many of these men, too, had seen and heard him in America.
Dr. Howson, the dean of Chester, and joint author with Conybeare of the scholarly and famous “Life of St. Paul,” came to Plymouth Church to see the man and hear the voice whose printed words had been so much to him. I accompanied him to Plymouth Church. We went home with Mr. Beecher, and they had a delightful time together; and on his return to England he sent one of his books in return for one Mr. Beecher had given him, inscribed, “For gold I give thee brass.”
I must make a special reference to the meeting with the theological students in City Temple on Friday morning, October 15. There were about six hundred of the students to whom Mr. Beecher was to talk. The remaining seats in the Temple were set aside for ministers and clergymen of all denominations, college professors, and visitors, who were admitted on presentation of their personal cards. These were taken up at the door at my request, and I now have the cards of six hundred and eighteen ministers, who, in addition to the students and professors, thronged the meeting, notwithstanding that the rain descended in torrents.
It was estimated by the pastor, Dr. Parker, that nearly three thousand people were present.
Never was Mr. Beecher more elevated in thought, more eloquent in expression, more tender in feeling; and never did I witness a multitude of earnest men more thoroughly filled with Christian joy than on this occasion.
That was a never-to-be-forgotten morning. The address was one of great power, suggestive, reminiscent, witty, full of wisdom and experience; but the great intellectual display came afterward, when he said he would try to answer any question put to him.
I imagine that of all people to ask uncomfortable and insoluble questions, the young theological student, freshly familiar with all the dogmatic niceties and doubts of the books, is the most troublesome, and Mr. Beecher, who always freely laid himself open by great breadth of statement, was an ideal target for their ingenuity. The first question keyed him up to the keenest enjoyment of the situation. For over half an hour he stood there, alert, excited, but never a more complete master of all his powers, and replied to the questions thrust at him from every side in rapid succession—questions of every conceivable sort, in theory, practice, and speculation. His replies were invariably brief, and they came as quickly as a flash of lightning. It seemed as if you could see his mind flash. He was witty, sarcastic, subtle, and humorous. His replies, commonly the very essence of common-sense, went to the mark like a bullet. Here is one question from the balcony that turned the laugh on the interlocutor very suddenly: “Mr. Beecher, I am a clergyman. May I beg to ask one question? I have simply to say how very grateful we should be if, as many of us are unable to hear you on Sunday morning, you could preach anywhere within our reach on Sunday evening.”
Mr. Beecher, quick as a flash: “I shall be perfectly willing to preach in St. Paul’s, or at Westminster, at any hour.”
“I mean in any chapel in London.”
Mr. Beecher replied: “I am afraid I shall have to carry out my original purpose in that regard. I have been preaching in the chapels in London some time, and should like to try some of the larger buildings.”
CLOSE OF THE SUMMER IN ENGLAND—TOUR IN DUBLIN.
I have often wondered to myself if the Dublin lecture was truly a success. Mr. Frederick Windee had agreed to pay me £80 for the lecture. Who Mr. Windee was I didn’t know, except that his references were good. He wrote me, when I made the engagement, that the “Reign of the Common People” would not do for Ireland. The subject smacked of politics, and it would not do to advertise it in Dublin. The “Institution” would risk “Wastes and Burdens of Society,” to which I knew Mr. Beecher would not object.
On our arrival at the station a little weasel-faced Irishman met us and introduced himself as Mr. Windee. He was very polite, but seemed nervous. On reaching the hotel he called me aside and told me he feared Mr. Beecher was a dangerous man for Dublin, but hoped he would not make a mistake. I assured him that there was not the slightest cause for fear.
He placed £80 in Irish bills in my hand. I asked him who was to preside. He told me that the Rev. Mr. Morrison would preside if he could be assured that the speaker would not in any way refer to religion or politics in his lecture. I had to tell Mr. Beecher what the feeling was. He smiled and said nothing. That night at Metropolitan Hall we found a large audience waiting. Mr. Beecher was introduced to the chairman, the Rev. S. G. Morrison, a somewhat patriarchal divine, who without ceremony and with great uncertainty conducted the lecturer to the platform, where he sat down to as cold a reception as I ever knew a man to receive. All was still as death. The chairman rose, stepped forward, and said:
“Ladies and gentlemen: I have the honor to introduce a distinguished orator from Yankee-land. Mr. Beecher is not on this platform in his clerical character, so we are not to be treated to any exposition of his theological sentiments. Mr. Beecher is not here as a politician, and therefore we will not hear from him any exposition of his political principles (Applause: Hear! Hear!), but Mr. Beecher is here to deliver an address of more than ordinary social importance. As a well-known philanthropist, from his own experience, from the wonderful abilities the great Master has gifted him with, and from his well-known character as one of the most distinguished orators, you may anticipate, I think, a lecture that shall not only be instructive, but delightful. I have great pleasure in introducing Mr. Beecher to your notice this evening.” (Applause.)
Mr. Beecher, on coming forward, was received with courteous but not cordial applause. He said:
“I have been very kindly introduced by the distinguished and honorable gentleman who has accompanied me. Therefore, I accept the position assigned me. I have not come to speak on theology, and you shall never know how much you have missed. (Laughter.) I have not come to speak on politics; I have enough of that in my own country. (Laughter.) And even if I knew about your politics, I should think it very inexpedient, ‘as one born abroad,’ to meddle with local affairs and local questions. I know that it is not necessary for one to know much about politics in order to make a good speaker, but nevertheless I accept the delimitation. There is nothing left of me but this—that I am a man. That is enough. ‘A man’s a man for a’ that,’ and as to other things, I give them the go-by in the hope that some twenty or thirty years hence I may revisit you and that then you may be very glad to hear my opinions about those other subjects.” (Laughter.)
Mr Beecher gave his lecture in one of his characteristic moods, caused by an attempt to confine him within certain bounds. The audience soon had reason to believe that he had in some way, perhaps unconsciously, woven a great deal of religion and politics into the lecture; at least the chairman told me after the lecture that he could see and feel it all through. The Dublin papers published the lecture entire the next morning.
The last lecture of the tour had been delivered; there was much handshaking; the people had got as thoroughly warmed as they dared. Mr. Beecher was jolly and happy as he extended his hand to the hesitating people gathered around him, seemingly wishing and hoping, but scarcely venturing, to approach him. “Come right along,” he said; “this is my good-by shake. I am glad to see you.”
We rode back to our hotel. To-morrow we would be on our way to America. Mrs. Beecher had supper waiting, and we had our small jokes and enjoyed ourselves. Never were three people more happy. Mr. Beecher reminded me that this was not the first time we had knocked off, a day at a time, a long lecture tour.
Between the 4th of July and the 21st of October, fifteen and a half weeks, Mr. Beecher had preached seventeen times, delivered nine public addresses and fifty-eight lectures. For the fifty-eight lectures he cleared the sum of $11,600 net of all expenses for himself and Mrs. Beecher from the day they sailed from New York, June 19, to the day they arrived at their home in Brooklyn, October 31. This was his summer vacation.
His health was always a wonder to me. He never knew what illness meant excepting at sea. He seldom, if ever, showed anger. When attacked in open debate or argument, or when aroused, his eyes twinkled, and then look out—a murderous broadside was about to sink the enemy’s ship.
LAST DAYS AND DEATH.
I find the following entries in my diary of 1887:
Saturday, March 5—In Washington, for Mr. Beecher. In the afternoon received telegram from Col. H. B. Beecher: “Father very ill; apoplexy; suffering no pain. Come home.”
Left my business and started for Brooklyn 10 P.M. The Associated Press publishes the sad news. It is the talk on the cars, and by everybody. Henry Ward Beecher’s name on everybody’s lips.
Sunday, March 6.—Arrived in Brooklyn 7 o’clock, Mr. Beecher’s house. Found a grief-stricken home. Mrs Beecher cannot be comforted. His two sons, the Colonel and Will, and their families, are by the dying bedside of their dear father. I see my dearly beloved—paralyzed, unconscious, never again to know any of those he loves. Dr. Searle, the faithful family physician, with him, and tells us there is no hope. Still, the family ask for another consultation. I went for Dr. Hammond, who tells us that Mr. Beecher will never speak again—that it is only a question of a few hours. It can hardly seem real. This great life is suddenly ebbing. He breathes on. Mrs. Beecher asks me not to go away. Dr. Searle and I waited and watched all night.
Monday, March 7.—Mr. Beecher seems in a deep sleep, as I have seen him sleep many times when very tired. His left side is paralyzed. He can move his right arm. He seems to be addressing audiences, and gestures very earnestly. From 11 o’clock to past midnight I sat by his side, and held his right hand. I believe he is conscious of my presence, for I ask him to give my hand two grips if he knows me, and he immediately responds. His breathing is harder, and at midnight there is a rattle in his throat. Dr. Searle and I keep the watch again. Mrs. Beecher has not laid down nor slept since he was stricken. She is heroic and brave.
Tuesday, March 8.—Dr. Searle awoke me at 4, saying: “Mr. Beecher is failing fast.” I was on the lounge in the parlor, and could hear him breathe distinctly in the room above. Everybody in the house was called, and was soon by his bedside. Mrs. Beecher, Colonel Beecher and family, Rev. Samuel Scoville and family, William C. Beecher and family. Respiration, 56 to 60; pulse, 120. The great life is surely going—no hope! He rallies, and raises the right arm. We again disperse; then we are summoned again. Daylight reveals its sad scene. His breath is shorter. Bulletins are sent out every fifteen minutes telling that Mr. Beecher is dying. Dr. Searle holds his pulse. The family are weeping about the dying bed. It is 9:40 A.M. Dr. Searle whispers to me: “His pulse has stopped. He is breathing his last. He is gone!” Dr. Searle lays the lifeless hand by his side, bends over, and is the first to kiss the cheek of his departed friend, and amid a flood of tears and pitiful sobs, walks away and announces to the waiting multitude outside that all is over. Henry Ward Beecher is dead!
Good-by, my best beloved friend. I shall never have another like you.
Mr. Beecher died of apoplexy at his residence in Brooklyn on Tuesday, March 8, 1887, at 9:40 A.M. The private funeral was held at 9:30 A.M. on the following Thursday at his late home, where none but the members of the family were present. The public funeral took place at Plymouth Church at 10:30 A.M. on Friday, the 11th. In accordance with the request so often repeated by Mr. Beecher, the funeral services were entirely under the direction of his friend, the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Hall, of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Brooklyn, who conducted the simple and impressive ceremonies at the house of mourning, and also at the church in which the world-renowned preacher and orator had earned fame and universal love. Dr. Hall’s public address was a model of simplicity, dignity, and manly pathos. He rose to the height of the occasion, and without a sign of exaggerated rhetoric impressed every mind with the greatness of the man who had departed, and comforted every loving heart under his firm yet tender touch. Mr. Beecher’s ideas of the fitness of things were never more signally confirmed than by his choice of Dr. Hall, “to bury, not to praise him.”
Surging crowds thronged the neighboring thoroughfares. Business was suspended by proclamation of the mayor of Brooklyn. The streets in all directions were filled with the sorrowing multitude, who stood in line for hours with a hope of viewing once more the face of their departed friend. When the funeral pageant entered Plymouth Church the interior of the great structure was blooming like an immense bower of flowers and living things. Evergreens and roses, smilax and blossoming vines, greeted those who entered. It seemed, indeed, the ushering of the dead into the realm of life. Lying in state during an entire day, the body was viewed by thousands. The crush to gain one glimpse of the remains was terrible, although the interior arrangements were perfect to secure an orderly passing of the long lines of people. The Thirteenth Regiment were the guard of honor; and hour after hour, from 10 in the morning until 10 in the evening, while the great organ gave forth subdued and solemn music, the people entered, looked, and passed. It was estimated that in this slow but constantly moving stream over fifty thousand persons—men, women, and children—had come to see his face for the last time.
On Saturday, March 12, 1887, Henry Ward Beecher’s body was buried in Greenwood. His hearse was followed not only by his comrades of the Thirteenth Regiment, his family, friends, parishioners, and fellow Brooklynites, but in sympathy and honor by millions of his countrymen. Not in this generation, at least, has there been a funeral so nobly significant. In the stately procession walked the viewless forms of principles, of governments, of nations, and of races; the guardian spirit of the slave whom he helped to liberate; the fair, sad genius of the Green Isle, for which he so often and so eloquently pleaded; the dusky representative of the Chinese Empire, in behalf of whose sons he again and again and again demanded justice; the fair form of modern science with the radiance of the morning sun on her queenly brow; the benign angel of charity, clothed in the whiteness of that purity which renders sin invisible; Democracy, with her free step, flowing hair and cap of many hues; Columbia, full of matronly grace and as benign as the atmosphere of June; and Christianity, calm, motherly, and forgiving—these were the pallbearers by whom the body of our hero was borne to its resting-place.
THE REV. DR. LYMAN ABBOTT was introduced to me by Henry Ward Beecher in his library one morning in 1877 as the editor of The Christian Union, then known as “Henry Ward Beecher’s paper.” We were about leaving for a long lecture tour in the West, and the doctor had called to consult and advise with his chief before leaving. I don’t know when I was ever more favorably impressed with a gentleman than I was with Dr. Abbott as I listened to his conversation and the general outline he was submitting for work ahead. Turning to me, Dr. Abbott said:
“Major Pond, we are anxious to secure from Mr. Beecher full accounts of his Western tour, as editorial correspondence, and I want to ask your help. You know how valuable such material must be, as all his friends are anxious to read every word he writes.”
This is the spirit that Dr. Abbott always manifested as associate editor with Mr. Beecher up to the end of that partnership, and Mr. Beecher’s love and appreciation of his friend was equally steadfast.
Mr. Beecher’s interest in The Christian Union never diminished, even after he left it, he insisting that now he was out of it Dr. Abbott would feel much more freedom in carrying out his own ideas. Dr. Abbott was a man of remarkable resources, could work easily, and grasp the right and the fitness of things, and he was also a man of great originality of thought, with a mind as clear as crystal, and was progressive. Mr. Beecher said he wished Dr. Abbott had a body equal to his head, but, he added, “he works easily and makes no false motions or superfluous exertion. Every faculty counts.”
While on the tour just referred to The Christian Union was regularly forwarded to Mr. Beecher, and as he was reading it one time, he turned to me and said: “I wish I could write like Abbott. He is the clearest writer we have.” Then he would read aloud Dr. Abbott’s editorials and comment on them as of the finest and soundest.
On another occasion Mr. Beecher told me that in profane history he considered that Dr. Richard S. Storrs was one of the most notable scholars of the day, while in Old Testament history his own brother, Edward Beecher, was the best versed man he ever knew; he seldom had to refer to the book, but could quote literally almost any passage, and could give the names and views of commentators and authorities that seemed almost endless. But the most accomplished, all-round Bible scholar, he believed, was Lyman Abbott.
Once, when speaking of the future of Plymouth Church, I said: “Mr. Beecher, what is to be the future of Plymouth Church? Certainly, there is no one to take your place there.”
“If I thought that, I would go out at once,” he replied. “That church has been too well brought up to be dependent on any one man for its cohesiveness. I have no fear on that score. Lyman Abbott only needs a Columbus.”
I have known many instances where friends would complain to Mr. Beecher that Dr. Abbott was working The Christian Union to his own aggrandizement. He always gave a sharp rebuke to these suggestions, and lost no opportunity to defend his friend, whom he declared to be the most patient, long suffering, and forgiving man in the world, or he never could have stood the neglect he was constantly receiving at his (Mr. Beecher’s) hands. This tendency to impugn Dr. Abbott’s methods pervaded even Mr. Beecher’s household quite extensively, but to no effect, for if ever Mr. Beecher could rise in his might, it was when good motives of a friend were assailed, and he generally settled the matter on the spot. Mr. Beecher died. The great church was left without a pastor. There was not a minister in the world that this congregation, as a body, wished to even consider as his successor. His friend, Dr. Abbott, who was now at the head of The Christian Union Company, its editor and business manager, had given up preaching for his present work. He was available and invited to supply the pulpit, pending the securing of a pastor. With hesitancy the doctor accepted, on the distinct understanding that he was not a candidate for the pastorate, and for months he preached to that great congregation, which seemed to show no signs of depletion from the loss of its pastor. Only a few famous preachers were thought of. When Rev. Dr. Parker, of London, came over in 1887 for a lecture tour and to deliver a eulogy on his friend, Mr. Beecher, the enterprising men of the press interviewed a large number of church members and printed their expressions, both kind, friendly, and unfriendly, to such an extent that before the doctor was in this country a week he was dragged through the newspapers as one who expected to be called to Plymouth Church, whereas he had his own great congregation eagerly awaiting his return. I don’t wonder that he was disgusted and discouraged and unable to finish his tour.
There was a young preacher in England who had made a great impression on Mr. Beecher by his speech of welcome before the Congregational board, at a reception given Mr. Beecher in Liverpool on our last day in England: Rev. Charles Berry, of Wolverhampton.
I had published Mr. Beecher’s remarks concerning Mr. Berry in my “Summer in England with Henry Ward Beecher,” and some Plymouth people had seen them, and suggested that Mr. Berry be invited to come over and preach a trial sermon. Meanwhile Dr. Abbott was preaching every Sunday, and the church was always full. Mr. Berry was preaching in Wolverhampton on a salary of £200 a year. He came to Plymouth Church, preached two sermons and received a call, with an offer of $9,000 a year. Of course this first real recognition of Mr. Berry as a preacher of unusual ability, and a call to the most famous pulpit in the world, surprised the religious public of Great Britain, and more than quadrupled his value at home. The people of his own congregation at once strongly protested against his going away, and from then until the time of his death he was the leading minister of his denomination in his own country.
During all this time Dr. Abbott was occupying the pulpit and preaching twice every Sunday. It finally dawned upon the Church Committee that they were really having the finest and most acceptable preaching available in all the world. Dr. Abbott was called to be their pastor, and accepted. There was, of course, some protest, for it did not seem possible to a great many that there were not some “great” men somewhere, and Lyman Abbott had been all his life familiar to them. But the church interest and attendance showed no falling off; it rather increased; the sentiment in his favor became and remained unanimous, and for ten years Lyman Abbott held that pulpit, and, as all the world knows, held it to the highest grade among the pulpits of the land.
The most unanimous protest came in 1898, when Dr. Abbott surprised his congregation by telling them that he was going to resign, and asked them to look for his successor. They were not going to accept his resignation. He had so completely filled their ideal of a pastor and preacher that to lose him meant a certain calamity to the church. Only a few of the veterans—who had seen Mr. Beecher followed by another, without disaster—could believe that Plymouth Church could be satisfied with a substitute for Dr. Abbott.
During all this decade Dr. Abbott had carried on his editorial work and the management of his paper. He had dared to make some remarkable changes. To the great dissatisfaction of many of his readers, he had changed the name of his paper—that well-known, loved and appropriate name, The Christian Union—to The Outlook. Even the name Christian Union was a magnificent property in itself, and the doctor had to answer a great many complaints and listen to prophecies of disaster, but it did not seem to worry him. There was an improvement in form and dress made at the same time, and the smaller page with wider columns was accepted cheerfully. It was a conspicuous and very welcome visitor in the household, and soon had an enhanced popularity. This ran for only a year or so, when another change was made to magazine form, with a neat greenish-gray cover, resembling more the old-fashioned almanac than anything else. This, many of the subscribers thought, was a fatal innovation, but it took only a few short weeks to convince them that the new size was more convenient to read, to carry, and to preserve; and so all the changes came to be acknowledged as advance movements in keeping with the times.
In my intercourse with Dr. Abbott during these ten years I saw that he was under great strain from his many duties. His two sermons a week, his editorial duties, and his lecture engagements were more than any man could keep up with, even had he the physique of an athlete. I learned that his ambition was to reach the great people more extensively than was possible through the pulpit. He told me long before he resigned that he wanted to stop preaching and try to make The Outlook more nearly what it ought to be by giving it his best work. His sons were developing good business ability, and he wanted to leave them an established business. The fact that the increased growth and influence of his paper has placed it as the very first in its line is evidence that his head was level, for is not The Outlook the paper above all others that voices public sentiment on all the important issues of the times? In all the improvements and continued elements of success he has been peculiarly aided by the discriminating taste and literary talent of his associate editor, Dr. Hamilton W. Mabie, and by the intelligent enterprise and judgment of his publisher, Mr. William B. Rowland; yet, after all, The Outlook is Lyman Abbott.
The Plymouth Committee was diligent in its search for a successor to Dr. Abbott. I heard Thomas G. Shearman say the evening that Mr. Abbott’s resignation was accepted: “We are going to have the greatest preaching in Plymouth right along. Your committee are not ready to report yet, but when they are ready, there will be no mistake.” This was at the close of the meeting that had been devoted to eulogistic speeches on Dr. Abbott in the doctor’s presence—speeches showing that, if one-half were true, the doctor was certainly a greater man than any that had yet walked upright on this terrestrial globe. It was for that congregation to bide their time with patience and see what the committee would present. In two weeks Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis, of Chicago, was announced at a prayer meeting for the following Sunday. The committee reported very enthusiastically. They had heard the young man in Chicago, and were in love with him at first sight. Dr. Hillis came. The church had been prepared to do honor to an ideal minister. They did. Dr. Abbott was foremost in welcoming the young stranger to the pulpit, to which he certainly had reason to believe no other man could ever be so welcome as he had been, and then, in all simplicity and modesty, Dr. Abbott took his seat in the congregation and joined in the tide of enthusiasm which rolled over Dr. Hillis. The new pastor was then and there carried up to the highest possible place in the hearts of the congregation. Such a scene of joy and general expression of love and satisfaction could not often be witnessed in any other body of Christian men and women. Plymouth Church is a unique institution—the fruits of forty years of Henry Ward Beecher’s inspiration and harmonizing genius.
Since his retirement, Dr. Abbott seems to have been none the less busy. He has been addressing large audiences continually. He has delivered twelve lectures before the Lowell Institute, Boston, has been “preacher to the University” at Yale, at Harvard, at Cornell, and elsewhere, year after year, and at other important places all over the country has been a welcome speaker and, what is better than all, he has given, “without money and without price,” an extensive course of lectures before the People’s Institute, Cooper Union, New York, where thousands have rushed to hear him and many have been obliged to turn away because the houses were filled on each occasion long before the time to begin. This great crowd contains as intelligent people as exist anywhere, most of whom have seen better days, and who show their appreciation of their opportunities by expressions of joy that can come only from true, loving hearts. The poor have the gospel preached to them by Dr. Lyman Abbott.
REV. NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS, third and present pastor of Plymouth Church (A.D. 1900), is one of whom I hardly dare attempt to write or prophesy, as I fear my heart may outrun my head. He came to Plymouth Church in April, 1899, and has been preaching twice every Sunday to a congregation that tests the capacity of the famous church—the most critical and intelligent congregation to preach to that exists in Christendom—a congregation that seldom heard and never could endure a dull sermon from any of its pastors.
Twelve years ago the public believed that the work of Plymouth Church was sustained and carried on mainly through the tremendous personality of Henry Ward Beecher, and that it must greatly suffer by his death; yet Dr. Lyman Abbott surprised the religious world by infusing into the work of that church increased vigor and strength for ten years longer. Now comes this young minister from the West (more markedly Western than either of his predecessors), born in Iowa thirty-seven years ago, and takes up the work laid down by Henry Ward Beecher and Dr. Lyman Abbott, and carries it on as vigorously as ever. Truly he must be a great man to do this thing.
His preaching differs widely from any other that this generation has heard. It is nineteenth century preaching, embellished by all the intellectual appliances conceivable. I remember that while I was a printer, away back in the fifties, the New York Sun announced a cylinder press that could print two thousand papers in an hour. What a sensation in the daily newspaper world! Now, one hundred thousand are printed on one machine in that time, and the demand for an increased output has constantly kept ahead of achievement The same wonderful progress in facilities for travel, in telephony and telegraphy and other applications of electricity, multiplying the efficiency of every conceivable faculty and resource, in every line of thought and invention, has extended even to the pulpit of Dr. Hillis. Such preaching! So much preaching, and such sound and commonsense preaching! Such showers of words and finished sentences, epigrammatic outpourings of sound thoughts, quotations from the best books on all subjects, ancient and modern! His head is a storehouse of knowledge. Such an encyclopedia of words and facts it seems impossible for one man to be. There is enough in a single sermon to make four good ones for four good ministers, and then there would be enough left over to supply four more.
I sit, just one in that great crowd, and listen spellbound, for it will not do to lose one of those sparkling sentences. I want him to stop, for he has given me more than I can possibly digest in one week; but yet I want him to go on, too, for it seems wrong to break the spell of enchantment. I catch a suggestion that I might surely profit by, but I cannot remember it, there is so much else that I must hear crowding it out. I risk a turn of my head to see if all the crowd are as intensely interested as I am. None of them see me, so intent is each one to catch every word. So it goes on for an hour. When he suddenly stops with, “Let us pray,” the whole congregation gives one simultaneous long breath. It is a short prayer. Then there is a hymn by the united choir and congregation—old Plymouth congregational singing, nowhere else to be heard. The great crowd rises to go away. I look in front of me and see there this young minister, meeting and shaking hands with the crowd that is rushing forward to greet him, as placid and quiet and as gently receiving his friends as though he had but just now stepped into the hall. There is not the slightest show of fatigue. And here I discover the greatest element in all this young man’s attractiveness. Dominating all else is his personality. All who meet him and have the privilege of speaking to him and shaking his hand are his devoted, loving friends.
Such is Dr. Hillis, and this the dawn of his career. What will he be at high meridian?
THE REV. DR. JOSEPH PARKER, minister of City Temple, London, and the greatest of living pulpit orators—I do not say the greatest preacher, for I think that distinction has belonged to Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, during the past fifty-three years—has eccentricities that have retarded his friendships among strangers. Dr. Parker and his congregation in London were loyal, staunch friends of Mr. Beecher and his church during the time of the great preacher’s deepest sorrow. In 1886, while in England with Henry Ward Beecher, I engaged Dr. Parker to come over here and make a lecture tour.
Meanwhile his friend, Mr. Beecher, died, and as Dr. Parker was coming to America, it was arranged that he should deliver a eulogy on his friend in the Academy of Music, Brooklyn. The net proceeds I was to present to the Beecher Statue Fund, then being raised. It was the Doctor’s first appearance on the tour, and a large audience of Mr. Beecher’s friends nearly filled the Academy. The net proceeds were subsequently turned over to the Statue Fund as a contribution from me.
At the end of the first week I paid Dr. Parker for five lectures, which included the Beecher eulogy. I made no objections to this. In fact, I knew I had a perfect right to do so. Nothing was said about it in settlement. The Doctor delivered five lectures and I had paid him. The net proceeds of the first lecture I had donated to the Beecher Statue Fund. I should have sent in a check as the net receipts of the lecture, with no further explanation, and then everything would have been all right and no questions asked; but as many thought the net receipts—about $1,100—looked small for so large a house, and did not take into consideration the expense of the Academy of Music rental, advertising, etc., I made a confidential statement to a member of the Statue Committee of all items, including the fee of the speaker. The secretary happened to be the very last man I should have trusted. He at once had an item for the newspapers, and rushed to the office, and that evening appeared in all the daily papers sensational headlines:
“DR. PARKER TAKES PAY FOR EULOGIZING HIS FRIEND.”
“MAJOR POND WITHHOLDS MONEY BELONGING TO THE
BEECHER STATUE.”
“DEACON WHITE DENOUNCES THE THIEF AND ACCOMPLICE,
ETC.”
It was exciting. Dr. Parker was on the road filling lecture engagements. Reporters and interviewers found him in Chicago and told him he was charged with refusing to deliver a eulogy on his friend for less than $250. Had he any money belonging to the Beecher Statue Fund? He declared he had none.
The Doctor had been lecturing to crowded houses, but now the reporters completely demoralized him. He telegraphed me that he must stop. He was ill and could not go farther. He returned to New York. Reporters haunted him there. Every interview made matters worse. He engaged passage and sailed back home in a very few days. There was due to Dr. Parker $1,100 for lectures that he had delivered. Of course I had been making money on his lectures, and to stop and cancel was a financial loss to me; but as in all contracts, “illness or unavoidable circumstances render this agreement null and void,” I could only settle with Dr. Parker by paying what was due him. I made out the statement and accompanying check for $1,100. He sent for me the day before he sailed. As I came into his dignified and sombre presence the Doctor said:
“Major Pond, I sail for my home to-morrow. My health is such that I cannot go on. The long voyages frighten me, and I am so completely collapsed when I arrive at the end of a day’s journey that I cannot address my audiences. Under these conditions, and with this certificate of one of your most eminent physicians, I am legally released from any obligation to you. You owe me $1,100 according to this statement. I propose to go away from America owing no one and having no one owe me, and you wish to pay me? You give me this check, which I suppose is good.”
Holding the check in his hand, he proceeded to tear it up. “You are an honorable man. I want you to feel welcome at all times in my house in London. As to what you owe me, I propose to give you five hundred years to pay me, and if when due you cannot meet it I will renew it five hundred years more.”
That was Dr. Parker’s eccentric business way.
Comparisons were sometimes made between Mr. Beecher and Dr. Parker from the standpoint of pulpit and church resemblances. There were, in fact, few if any points of similarity. In the Englishman’s manner there is the note of social dominance and a full gamut of ecclesiastical supremacy. Mr. Beecher had none of this, but in his relation to the public exhibited only a loving paternalism. Dr. Parker directs as well as teaches. Beecher advised and sympathized.
In public affairs, taking their different conditions into view, Dr. Joseph Parker and Henry Ward Beecher would bear a closer comparison, not at all unfavorable to Beecher’s British compeer.
Dr. Parker was Mr. Beecher’s personal friend of many years’ standing, and was his host in England on several occasions, the last being in 1886. During Beecher’s English campaign in defence of the Union cause, in 1863, Dr. Parker, then living and preaching in Manchester, was among Mr. Beecher’s firmest and most active supporters. As a speaker, Dr. Parker’s manner, though essentially dramatic, is never melodramatic like that of Dr. Talmage. His intellect, and therefore his voice and style, is that of action—insistent, believing, combative, even aggressive. His manner is more emphatic and his tones deeper than were Mr. Beecher’s, striking as the latter’s often were. The small piercing eyes and peculiar voice hold his audience strongly; even the burr in his tones helps the orator’s control. It intensifies the air of sagacity, the expression of intellectual shrewdness, as well as sincerity, which make him one of the more notable personages I have been able to bring into the arena of brain and speech which our lecture forum offers. Dr. Parker does not possess the amazing versatility which made Mr. Beecher so attractive and gave him such a mental charm, nor does he possess at all times the sunny sweetness of disposition which men loved in Mr. Beecher.
Dr. Parker’s sincerity is always as apparent as his ability of thought and expression. He gives the impression that all his preparation and power are aimed merely to give suitable expression to the opinions and convictions that are his. Words, tones, mannerisms, gestures, are all simply vehicles. It is the thought and its purpose that dominate all, and this is the secret of his strength, success, and power.
His imagery is English; his poesy belongs to their flowers and verdure; the ruggedness of his speech and manner is that of the bleak moors of the north of England. A middle-class Englishman, the Doctor is the personification of all their sterling traits and sturdy characteristics. His speech is studied, polished, finished; his gestures are trained, and all climaxes are carefully arranged. One can only imagine what might be if the speaker ever broke loose; but he never did so far as I know. Our Beecher, on the contrary, was, while obedient to the law of his themes, free as the wind, fresh as the air, full of fancy and illustration as all out of doors, alive with the human glory and glow of life, sweeping in grandeur, glowing with sunshine or melting as with the dew and the joy of the eve. All these, and the deep, lifting, surging soul of the man were in his utterances.
But when all is said for Mr. Beecher, it must not be forgotten that Dr. Parker is a power, a unique personality, gifted with a remarkable intellect and endowed with a temperamental quality which makes all characteristics effective for his work. He is a contemporary whose force and value can be measured only by a comparison with one like Mr. Beecher. And I found him an honorable man.